A.G. Weser, Bremen

81 commissioned U-boats

Founded on 8 November 1843 as the Eisengiesserei und Maschinenfabrik Waltjen und Leonhard, becoming Waltjen & Co in 1849 this firm only started very slowly in ship construction. The Roland in 1846, the Falcke in 1865. On 26th March 1873 the activities and firm became part of the AG Weser and the very first important order came from the Kaiserliche Marine. Between 1875 and 1881 eleven gunboats of the Wespe Class were built by the yard. After this order the construction was again mainly for civil use. Halfway through the eighties a serious dredging was done on the Weser river, again making Bremen an important harbour. Just before the turn of the century the harbour grew very heavily.

This was also the moment at which the AG Weser decided to buy new grounds at Gröpelingen where there were constructed five new slips. In 1904 everything was ready at the new location and Bremen was abandoned for further ship construction. New installations followed and between 1905 and 1914 no less then 40 passenger and merchant ships were constructed on the new wharf. During the First World War they constructed small cruisers and U-boats.

D’Equevilley, who worked before at the Germaniawerft yard, was asked by the AG Weser to construct a new U-boat in 1912. As they now had their own U-Bootkonstruktionsbüro they immediately became part of the Ms Type U-boat program of the Marine-Amt. The first U-boats constructed over there were however not of the Ms Type but were UB I class subs, the UB 9-UB 15 series. Also UC I series and UB and UC II series were constructed at Weser. By 1917 most of the work went into the construction of the UB III class. Three UC III were ordered in 1917 also but never got finished. 14 more UB III’s ordered in June 1918 were never started.

Also three U-boats for the Austrian-Hungarian navy were constructed over there, the U15-U17 series at Pola. AG Weser was also responsible for the plans of the U 27-U 32 series and the U 40 that were constructed at Pola and Fiume for the Austrian-Hungarian navy and they also gave a licence for construction of three U-boats in Sweden, the Bävern was constructed at Kockums at Malmö and the Illern and Uttern at the state naval shipyard of Karlskrona.